Yesterday Mirabelle slipped through my legs as I was coming in from work, and shot down the stairs and into the street. She’s so fed up with being shut in the flat all the time. I suppose it’s not much of a life for a cat, but what am I to do, when she isn’t even supposed to be there?
It took ages to find her, shouting along the street and hoping that my landlord didn’t suddenly decide to pop up and ask me what I was doing. And eventually, when it was really dark, and I was frozen stiff, I found her in one of the gardens in the next street. She had a bird in her mouth. A blue tit. I put my fingers in her mouth and to get her to open it, and the bird got free and just flew straight out into the sky. I hope it survives. But I suppose it couldn’t have been that badly injured if it could fly.
I was so glad she hadn’t got hit by a car or something. Apart from anything else, I hate going to the vet. It is a bit weird the way vets behave, don’t you think? Especially the way they give the pet your surname, and call out the whole rigmarole when the vet is ready; ‘Stripy Jenkins’, ‘Flufflepuff Mackintosh’ etc. Makes me wish I’d called Mirabelle ‘The Marchioness of Mirabelle’ just to make it all sound stupider. (It is strange, really, when you think of how even old, very dignified human beings are only called by their Christian names in hospital wards.)
